Captivity
by uva7
Summary: Bella and Edward are strangers who have been kidnapped by a sadist and forced to play out his fantasies.
1. Chapter 1

The rain pours thick over the city like slow molasses, drizzling deep down into its underbelly and soaking it to the core. Wet penetrates each and every thing with a malevolent creep that slip slither slides into the sewers.

But mostly, the rain just soaks my nest.

I shiver, knowing that I won't be dry tonight. All the shelters are surely full, though I cannot risk trying to stay in one. He might find me. And what then? Would he make me go back to that house? Would he beat me senseless, or within just an inch of it so I could lay and be miserable in the knowledge that I failed him? And that's the problem, the problem with me lying here when my work was left undone at the house. The problem was that I was being useless. I shook not so much from the cold, wet, or hunger, but more from the deep-down sort of knowledge that I was being a very, very bad girl.

My bones grate on the thinner edges of my space. My skin feels thin enough to betray my very bones to the outside world.

"Hey there, angel."

Jacob's voice rises like a sweet sunshine into my ears and warms my skin. I smile, despite the tensing of my muscles and quickening of my rabbit-fast heart. This is just Jacob, silly. He's never hurt you, no, not once. Not wanting to brave the rain, I turn my head just so I can peer out from under the top of the bin. What a sight I must be! He would be furious.

"Hi." My voice comes out too soft. I hope he's heard so I don't have to repeat myself. No need to draw attention.

"Wish I could squeeze in there with ya. It's fucking-" Flinch. I can't help it. "-awful out here."

"I'm sorry. Maybe-"

He's down on my level fast, too fast. Searching brown eyes pour into mine and the invasion hurts- even though it's just Jake. "Don't apologize, sweet girl." He reaches out to touch my chin, and I can nearly feel the disappointment weighing heavily off of him when I tuck my face back in. He knows I don't like to be touched.

"Listen. I'm going down under the bridge tonight. Hear me out! I know it's scary for you, but I'll be there with ya the whole time. No one will bother us. The weather's too bad for you right now and your shelter is on its last legs."

I consider the cracked plastic above me. He's right, but if we're down there, there's so much that can go wrong, and I-

"C'mon now."

I extract myself slowly from the shelter to avoid his outstretched hand. The rain preys upon every dry bit of me, and like the slow winter chill draws life from fall, it begins to draw mine. Tremors make my bones feel brittle. Jacob lets his soaking plastic poncho fall over my head to shield off the majority of the wet. I don't protest. This is something I wish was different- that I could be like normal girls, and actually stand up for myself. Say I wanted things to be a certain way. But ever since she left, he had beaten that right into my very core. I am in charge. Not you. Never you.

We make our way through the alleyways of the city, Jacob trading silent nods with allies and edging carefully past the territory of those less friendly. This is partially why he heaps old trench coats and sweatshirts and the like over me. The more covered I am, the less noticeable and hopefully the less appealing. The drug addicts, gangbangers, and others were always hunting. For a hit, for some cash, but mostly for anyone defenseless. I tried not to stray from my hiding places unless in Jacob's wake. With a dark complexion and stone-y features, he cuts an imposing figure that is a challenge in its own right. He's also built himself a fair reputation for fighting, which doesn't help my anxiety around him. But I need him. For safety, and to keep me somewhat sane out here.

The bridge is a nasty part of our makeshift community. Jake says that wherever large groups of people gather, there's bound to be trouble. Just as this is true of higher crime rates in cities, this is also true of the bridge.

A sad little river was cause for its construction, but it's a sickly little thing that is more sludge than anything else. Shopping carts, car tires, used needles- you name it. Under the bridge was best for storms like this, because the river hardly swelled at all and it was the most sheltered from the elements. Especially back where the bridge was low to the sloping upwards ground, by where it met the road- if you could wedge yourself under there, you could stay dry. Or dry off, in our case.

The problem was that I couldn't stay here by myself. I hardly allowed Jake to convince me to come, normally. But I had lost so much weight since coming out here that cold ate right through me. I couldn't land in a hospital. He might find me. So Jake got his way tonight.

Foreign hands wisped along my shoes, the bottom of my pants, the sides of my coats. Jacob wolfishly bared his teeth, standing up taller despite the lower and lower the ceiling got. I knew he was trying to protect me, but it still gave me bright flashes of hot panic. I doused them as soon as they came.

"Right under here. C'mon angel." He threw a warning glare at two skinny kids not much younger than us. They scurried farther back into the darkness and away from a dry corner. We crept into it, nestling down and knotting together for the body heat. I made sure to keep our layers in between us. I needed this for survival, but my heart still nearly beat out of my chest.

"Sleep, Bella." Ah, another solid instruction. Sometimes, though I was thankful each day for escaping him, I missed the security of Charlie's dominance.

I slept.

The crack of thunder didn't wake me so much as the incessant plea of my bladder did. The storm had continued, but the rain appeared to have let off for a bit. I crept away from Jake, which woke him immediately from the aware-and-asleep state he had settled in to.

"I will be right back. I just have to pee." His eyes shimmied closed again, into little slits.

"Not too far."

Resisting the urge to apologize or thank him, I wormed my way out from our corner. Once the ceiling was high enough to stand bent, I dodged out from under the bridge into a little group of bushes. I could at least have some privacy- a luxury not to be underestimated out here.

I peeled away the hanging ends of my upper layers to get at my pants, and had just put my fingers on the button and zipper when I felt ice against my skin.

Metal. On my hip. A neck, at my mouth. I could smell fresh soap, tinged of man.

Fear, like a wild beast, reared its head and swallowed me whole.

"Hello, Isabella."

Darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

BPOV

And at once, I am aware.

I know how to wake up in a dangerous situation. Carefully, and never all at once. I send my mind down to the tips of my toes, shifting my bones and making sure everything below the waist can be accounted for without injury. My knees feel bruised, and my feet have likely bled through my socks again, but nothing feels new. Okay, up. My consciousness moves along my hips (very sore- new) up through my gut. I feel incredibly nauseous. My chest feels fine. Carefully, and still blind, I feel along my neck. There is a pinprick of soreness, and as I remember my last moments, I know he must have given me something.

My eyes are opened by a sense of being watched.

Abuse makes you an animal of prey. It causes a certain sort of behavior, a wariness, a constant not-quite-at-ease sense of threat. I know when I am being watched.

I take in my surroundings quickly to find a hiding place. My heart has taken up a pounding sprint by now. I am not safe. Not at all.

The room I am in is like nothing I've ever seen before. A four walled square, with three mirrored glass walls and one transparent. I am in a cage.

I am curled in a fetal position, with the bars biting into my back and hips. It seems to be… a dog cage? I shift myself upwards into a sitting position, though it's very uncomfortable. I push against the sides, but there is no door that I can see. My cage sits at the base of a greying mattress atop a box spring, with no sheets to speak of or pillow.

The new position of my head crammed under the top of the cage makes my collar bite into my skin.

Wait.

I trace it with my fingers. It's smooth and cold, and made of something chillingly hard. At five or six places there is an uncomfortable sort of spike. Not so much a spike, but rather a rounded protruding piece that digs and hurts me.

Fear. Overwhelming. I must close my eyes, for I can feel the panic carrying me away.

"Welcome, Isabella."

I would have jumped about four feet in the air if I were able. Instead, my skin pressed impossibly harder against the walls of the cage and my trembling increased ten fold.

"I think it's time we explain our first rule."

The voice comes from a small speaker that shines in the upper corner of the room, adjacent to a security camera. They both look the way stainless steel appliances do, and are that much more terrifying because of it.

FIRE.

Electricity jumps through my body, ripping and burning and OH PLEASE GOD MAKE IT-

It stops. I sag deep into the cage, shivering and crying. My cries are involuntary, so great the pain. The collar was the origin of the shock. But it didn't feel small, like I assume electric dog collars feel. This was true pain. Worse than when Charlie-

"Isabella, this is what will happen when you do not do what is asked of you. Do you understand?"

I nod through my tears. This is something I can understand. Pain, because I did a bad thing. I burrow my nails deep into my thighs, something I did when I lived with Charlie to help ground me in the moment. Fear could carry me away, and when it swept me along it caused me to do other bad things.

Bad, bad girl. I brought this upon myself.

The pokey things in the collar were warm on my neck. I feel it humming along my throat like a living thing.

"Isabella, look and see why you've been brought here."

I fight through tears to lift my head. On the other side of the transparent wall is a nearly identical room. Three mirrored walls. One common wall with me. But no cage, and the bed has sheets. There is a knife lying on the ground next to the man's feet.

My eyes find him and I cry out in terror.

He looks demonic, wild as sin and frighteningly handsome.

He stands at the ready, close to the wall we share. But it's not his proximity that terrifies me, it's his eyes. They are the most startling shade of green and they burn right through me and I feel as though I shall be ash. I can physically feel the anger boiling off of him, and I shrink back as much as I can. This man could kill me. This man will kill me. Does he know how bad I have been?

He's much taller than Charlie. Probably six and a half feet, he makes me quake just with the sheer size of him. And oh.

He's naked.

So am I!

It escapes me how I could have not noticed until this moment. I blush deeply and try to shift to cover the important bits, but there's really not much room and I bend my wrist the wrong way trying. I bite my lip and cry out, and the strength my tears have me quivering more than my fear does.

He suddenly slams his open hand to the glass wall, searching my eyes with his. He says something, but it's soundless.

"Edward wants to say hi."

The glass wall, incredibly, begins to rise. It slips away into the ceiling with a sickening slowness, and I know this is it. I have been so bad, and the voice is punishing me, and this man must be here to do the same. He is so muscular. His body has been chiseled, absolutely horrifying in its size. He moves quickly under the wall, and with a liquid grace even in his anger. He stoops down to my cage and grasps the bars at the top.

Gritting his teeth- oh! He is like an animal, and tears the top bars of the cage apart. His shoulders fan out into the wingspan of his arms, muscles churning and veins popping.

I have never been so frightened.

Snatching me roughly by the shoulders and pinning my arms to my sides, he pulls me from the ruined cage. Once he sets me on the bed, I scoot away from him, pulling up my knees and crying harder.

In a situation like this, so confusing, so unknown, I must hide. Yet the room offers no sanctuary. Edward reaches his hand towards me, and I flinch and half raise mine in defense. It is of no use of course. He can do anything he wants to me.

EPOV

When I first noticed my new neighbor, I was filled with a profound sadness. After what happened to the last girl (the pain of which is still so fresh for me) I knew that I would be unable to bear the same.

I would make sure this one got to live.

Although it's not much of a life, it is a life. I hold hope still that someone, anyone is searching…

The cages piss me off. What a way for her to become accustomed to this life. He knows that it sets the tone, and helps them understand how things will be. Hence the collar. And the water dish on the floor. And the lack of sheets on the bed. All to degrade, and make them more compliant…

But this one was already destroyed.

I could tell even while she slept. I saw the scars and knew. Cigarette burns. Small crescent moons that I now know are self-inflicted on her thighs. Other irregular scars, all over her, that spoke to years of abuse. But when she woke, oh, when she woke.

It was the shaking and the little cries that gave it away. And those big old brown eyes that melt like a victim's. That's what she is. A victim. I don't know how he found her, but he found a girl who has already been conditioned for him to be perfectly obedient. I bet she would follow orders even without the collar. Well, some. But we'll see.

Her size concerns me also. Not only is she too short, but she also weighed probably one hundred pounds soaking wet. He loves to starve them here. He whispers to me sometimes, over the speaker, that I should be grateful to have such pretty little things to play with. He whispers that he hopes I enjoy the feel of their bones as much as he will when they're dead.

Not this one, though. I will make sure.

I know she's afraid of me, but I can't hold myself back when the wall goes up. I can't stand to see them in the cages. I have to be a brute with it too, because I've learned that he won't let them out.

I know I have to be careful. But the anger, for me, is a living thing. A dragon that sleeps very lightly in my belly, and is woken by the slightest thing. That fire in me is what landed me in prison to begin with.

I can't think of the past here. All focus needs to be away from the outside world, unless concerned with how to return to it.

She shies away from me after I've lifted her (and I can feel when I do that my weight estimate was too generous). I can tell by the heat of her blush that she feels uncomfortable with the exposure in our situation. Modesty will do her no good here (it did none of them any good).

I can tell that I've scared her. "Fuck." I pull my hand roughly through my hair to ground myself. The murmur in my body begins to quiet. I can relax my muscles, just so, and then a bit more. Breathe, Edward.

When I reach out to her, I intend to comfort. Take her hand and explain our situation, and the role that she must (must!) play if she wants to remain alive. But when she flinches and raises her hand to shield the blow she's expecting, I nearly lose it.

Someone hurt this little girl.

She is a girl. We're naked and her body begs to differ, but I can see in her pleading eyes that there is no maturity, no independence, no strength.

Only fear.

I drop to my knees. I want to seem the least threatening I possibly can. I need to make her understand that I mean her no harm (he does) and that I am in the same situation as she (not quite).

"Look," I begin, trying to make my voice as soft as I can. She still winces and the tears continue. I touch the collar at my own neck. "We're in this together."

She quickly wipes at her eyes, looking for all the world a child.

"Where are we?" her voice falls softly on my ears. She is so weak.

"I don't know. But you're safe, for now. He hasn't told me to do anything yet. I won't touch you."

Her visible relief at this is momentary. She startles when a laugh comes over the speaker. Fuck. He's not done for today just yet.

"Edward, you're being too kind to her. She's been a very, very bad girl, and I think you need to teach her a lesson."

"Please, you twisted fuck, don't make me fucking do this yet. She just got here!" I put my head between my hands. As if any amount of pleading will change what he wants. None of it ever has. This detached voice, this sick son of a bitch, has been the bane of my existence for God knows how long. The shock comes, but it's expected and subtle, just a tap to remind me what is at stake. I'm not in too much trouble just yet.

"Punish her."

Defeat slumps my shoulders. I stand heavily, and stride over to my bed to retrieve the knife.


	3. Chapter 3

BPOV

When he picks up the knife, I panic.

Not a wild sort of panic, but rather a paralysis that seeps from my mind down through my body. I stop crying, and watch him with wary eyes. I know that the voice seems to be commanding the situation, but he has gone and gotten this knife on his own. Maybe he has been here longer than I have?

Was there someone here before me?

I feel a strange sense of hysteria. I feel detached from my body- like when Charlie would do the truly awful things to me. When he broke my wrist. Or when he would sit on my chest so I couldn't breathe…

He sits too close to me on the bed, but has lifted me before I can shift away. He pulls me into his lap, knife in hand. What a strange thing, to be touching another person so completely. We are entirely exposed, bare skin on bare skin. All of my conditioned fears climax at a painful point behind my eyes, and the floodgates open once more. No longer detached, I am quaking and sobbing. The knife glints impossibly sharp before me, with an edge that doesn't stop but rather tapers out of being.

He puts his arm around my neck, cupping his hand closed over my mouth. This quiets my sobs to some degree, and I know I am being a bad girl by not stopping, but I can't, it's just too much and I-

"How fucking much?"

I hate curse words. I hate hate hate them. "You fucking bitch! You fucking piece of worthless shit!" CRACK

I can't I

He's just so close and I

i don't like to be touched i can't i can't

I am slipping into a sea. A black and cold sea that languidly licks over my feet, and then my knees, and then my waist, and oh, how soothing to drown…

The cool blade makes itself a foreign part of me as it nestles into the top of my arm. His firm grip on me isn't firm enough, and my small struggle makes the blade slip deeper than he intended.

"FUCK. HOW FUCKING MUCH?"

His grip on me tightens until I feel he shall break my bones. The knife slithers out, and crimson gathers in the relatively shallow wound.

It feels as though my arm is on fire.

I look up into his eyes, and plead for forgiveness. "I'm so sorry. I'll be better. I'll be a good girl!" Within their emerald depths I can read sorrow, sorrow so profound it seems to encompass all that there is in his soul. He bites his lip, as though biting back the tears I can see gathering in the corners of his eyes. He cradles me still, tightly, but I feel almost swaddled in his lap like a baby, despite our exposure. I thought he was punishing me, but, dare I say it… he seems to also be receiving punishment of his own.

"What do you think, Edward? Have you taught her thoroughly how things will go?" The voice is a cascade of scarcely-masked glee.

"Yes." He grinds this response out, and I can feel (because I'm touching his skin!) his body sag in exhaustion. This man is weary. His body is hard and coiled to strike, but his mind is leaving him.

I am exhausted too, aren't I? The pain is slipping away from me. The whole world seems to be deserting me, in fact. Just

slipping away from where I can

feel it and I just

Darkness.

When I wake, the wall is up.

I take slow stock of myself, and open my eyes. The top of my arm bears a snowy bandage, a pad of gauze carefully taped down. I sit up, and my head swims. I wonder who has taken care of me?

It must have been him. I cannot discern any doors to leave the room we're in, though one could be flush with the glass and undiscoverable. Operated remotely, like the transparent wall. I look to see him.

He sits on the edge of the bed, with his hands in his hair and head bowed deeply towards the floor. The breadth of his shoulders still takes my breath away (this is a dangerous man) but my fear for him is lessened each passing moment in this hellish nightmare.

A teardrop falls from his downward turned face, and another. He is crying.

I have never seen a man cry.

I stand, on wobbly newborn calf legs that threaten to abandon this pursuit. I feel brittle, but I walk towards the wall that we share. In all of my time of pain, of suffering, of despair, I hoped for someone to share the burden of horror with. I sink down to my knees, and sit cross-legged, my knees pressed up to the wall.

He observes this with a slightly lifted head, and when I have settled, he sinks to his hands and knees and moves the short distance to the wall. He joins me, and places his forehead against the glass (when his head is bowed this way, it looks as though it is done almost in prayer).

I place my forehead against his, with about a half inch of glass separating us. Strangely, I feel no anxiety with this action.

He has been one of my torturers here. He probably will continue to be. But I knew when he showed me our common collar that he was a prisoner as I was, and a slave to the disembodied voice.

The wall begins to rise, which startles me. My gasp is quick, but I scoot under the rising wall and into his lap.

How strange to feel this touch and feel comforted.

His massive arms encircle me completely and cradle me to his chest. I don't cry, or even tremble- I am fearless in this moment. His sorrow dampens the top of my head.

I can trust this man.

EPOV

I can trust this girl.

She will survive this, I know for a fact. Her strength in initiating contact is evident. Even as a clear abuse victim, she has some sort of fire in her that will allow her to keep going.

Tanya nearly made it. In the end, she just had too much fire. She challenged the voice a lot in the beginning, and the multitude of shocks gave her some tremors and twitches that were heavily unsettling. But she seemed to learn after awhile… until the voice made the demand that they all refuse. Bile rises in my throat imagining another day, with this girl, that the demand will be made.

This voice belongs to a man who is seriously fucked up. A sexual sadist, he gets off on making me do these things to these girls. But it's all part of his delusion. In his mind, I know, he imagines that he is making my life perfect. Treating me to a wonderful kingdom with all that I desire. There is a disconnect in his brain that creates this fantasy.

But when the girls shatter the fantasy to refuse the demand…

I cannot warn them. He's always listening. I need to stay alive, because he could bring someone else in here who doesn't know how to make this the least horrible for them. He could bring someone in who might actually… enjoy this.

I never let the anger get the best of me purposely. But sometimes, I have hurt the girls. I look down and see this sweet bird's delicacy. Her weakness. I need to preserve her- it's an all-consuming sort of need that I hope will help me contain the anger if the time should ever come.

My thoughts are so scattered as I hold this girl. She feels sharp in my arms, something that terrifies me. There is no room for error in her body weight, and I worry in the time to come that he will play his eating games with her.

I know that there will be points of light with her.

We will laugh. I will learn about her past life. We will bond and become friends. I did these things with all of the other girls- I need to make their time here mean something.

I need to make sure they have someone to remember them.

But with this one, I need to understand her. I am compelled by her presence, feeling things I have not felt with the others. I need to shield this from him until I can understand the implications.

Perhaps, if he believes me to be in love with her, he will see his job as done.

I have been so lost in the wanderings of my musings that I have not noticed she has fallen deeply asleep. Her breathing is coming from an at-ease part of her, and it soothes me with a fresh and cool whisper.

I stand, lifting her with ease (she is such nothingness it pains me). She does not stir. I make my way over to my bed, since he has always graced me with soft white sheets and blankets. The girls tend to shiver the nights away when he keeps us separate. What a kindness he has done her tonight…

When I try to lay her down, she whimpers in her sleep and clutches tighter at my neck. It breaks my heart, her desperate need to trust me. She should be much more cautious, choosing me for security so early on. Of course, I will be here for her.

Once lying in the bed, she winds herself so close to me it feels like she's trying to leap inside of my skin. She shivers with delicacy (it's always so chilly in here) and I manage to maintain my composure when her erect nipples brush against me.

He will make me do those things later on, and I mustn't look forward to them at all.

I hum her a sweet lullaby to swing us both softly into sleep.


End file.
